Hand-held vacuum cleaners are known from, for example, GB 1 207 278. This document discloses a hand-held vacuum cleaner having an elongate main body with an air inlet, a suction conduit and a dust bag for separating dirt and dust from an airflow. A motor and fan assembly is provided in the main body together with a power source. A handgrip is located on the upper part of the hand-held vacuum cleaner. The handgrip extends parallel to the elongate main body at a shallow angle to the suction conduit, and both the airflow generator and the power source are located in the main body underneath the handgrip. JP 2004-041760 discloses a hand-held vacuum cleaner having a similar handgrip arrangement. However, in this case, the motor and fan assembly and the power source of the hand-held vacuum cleaner are arranged so that the centre of gravity of the machine is located at the centre of the handgrip.
An alternative arrangement of handgrip is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,871,624. This document discloses a hand-held vacuum cleaner having a cylindrical main body and a handgrip arranged at one end. A curved suction conduit is located at an end opposite to the handgrip. The handgrip is arranged transversely to the longitudinal axis of the cylindrical main body and approximately parallel to the suction conduit. This arrangement may give the user a stronger wrist position in use than the handgrip arrangements disclosed in GB 1 207 278 and JP 2004-041760. However, the heavy components of the vacuum cleaner (for example, the motor and fan assembly) are located forwardly of the handgrip relative to a user's hand when the vacuum cleaner is in use. Therefore, the centre of mass of the respective hand-held vacuum cleaner will be located forwardly of the handgrip. This may result in the hand-held vacuum cleaner described above being tiring and uncomfortable to use because the user will have to exert additional effort in order to maintain the hand-held vacuum cleaner in a fixed orientation.